Our Deck Materials | Green Shield Deck Builders

After building over 3,500 decks, Green Shield has identified exactly where traditional builds fail. We’ve replaced industry-standard shortcuts with smarter engineering and premier materials designed to last a lifetime.

The Structural Backbone:

• Engineered Foundations: Green Shield uses high-performance footing pads instead of traditional concrete footings. These provide a stable, lifetime foundation that remains unaffected by Michigan’s freeze-thaw cycles.
• KDAT Lumber: We use Kiln Dried After Treatment (KDAT) lumber for our framing. Because this wood is "pre-shrunk" in a specialized oven, it won't warp or create the "wavy" deck surface common with standard wet-treated lumber.
• Advanced Composite Surface: Our proprietary rice-hull composite contains zero wood fillers. This makes the boards naturally impervious to moisture and mold, while integrated heat-blocking technology keeps the surface comfortable for homeowners.
• Commercial-Grade Railing: We install powder-coated aluminum railings that resist rust and cracking. Unlike wood or vinyl, these maintain their structural integrity and "no-maintenance" finish for decades.

The Green Shield Guarantee: These standards are only as good as the installation. That’s why your project is handled by in-house, W-2 craftsmen—never subcontractors. We provide the bridge between elite engineering and a professional reality, all backed by a transferable lifetime warranty.

Hi. My name is Adam Rought, founder and CEO of Green Shield Deck Builders. After building three thousand decks and years of research and development, we have curated the perfect products that go into building a forever deck. In this short video, we're gonna go through some of the items that go into building a forever Green Shield deck. We've got the lifetime foundation, the lifetime frame, the lifetime composite, the lifetime rail. So we'll start right off with the foundation. This is the beginning part of a deck. The footing, it goes underneath your post. Typically, in construction, what you see out here is concrete. They'll dig a hole, they'll throw a bag of concrete in there, and they'll drop the post in. The problem with this is we build year round. We cannot rely on the weather and different things to get the bearing capacity we need, we do not use concrete at all. We're using a lifetime solution. This is called footing pad. These are extremely cool. This is our smallest one. They they range in size depending on your project. A project will have multiple sizes. This is our typical one. You might see this on your project as well. You might even see bigger ones. So these are really cool. It allows us to have an engineered solution and provide our customers with a lifetime warranty. The last thing we need is any deck sinking over time or having any issues. We want that composite to be dead flat at the top. So the next thing I wanna talk about, instead of a builder grade four by four, we're going with a high grade number one southern yellow pine six by six. Put that on the foundation, that's significantly more wood and less chance of decay over time. But hey, maybe that's not enough. I agree. The next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna actually put a RotBloc protection around it. So the dirt's gonna come to about here. We call this area the critical rot zone. This is where the microorganisms, the the worms, and the different things live. So all decay on earth is right in that top layer. So that's where we need to focus. Right? So we focus on that area by protecting your post with this rot protection. The next thing we wanna talk about is framing. We pick our own product. This has been hand sorted at the treatment facility. It's been hand sorted at our lumber yard just for composite decks and for purity and perfection to build composite decks to a dead flat and perfect lifetime quality. So then in the field, we can also sort it and make sure that we're installing only the best quality materials, so that way we can offer the best warranty. So what's so different about your lumber? Kiln dried after treatment. So after this has been treated in the treatment chamber, so that way it doesn't rot or decay, it then gets dried out in basically what looks to be like a giant oven. So that's gonna actually pull the moisture out over several days. We're gonna heat this product up and draw the moisture out. How does that benefit you? What it's gonna actually do is I call it pre shrinking the board. The last thing you wanna do is have a swollen board. You put composite on there. Well, this one swells and the next one doesn't swell as much. So what does that do to your composite? It makes it look wavy. We cannot have trip hazards in our deck. We do not want wavy decks. We need to get as much moisture out of that product as possible before we install it for our customers. We've got two different colors. How cool is that? So you can actually get to spec your framing color and yes, no extra cost for the gray and we are the one of the only builders that I know of that has a gray framing And we're really excited to offer this product at no extra price because this is just such a cool look if you ask me. The last thing we want in any construction site is moisture and water. It's the enemy of a well built home deck, or any construction project. Our decking is moisture free because it doesn't use any wood filler. A lot of the deck boards on the market have a wood filler inside that actually can absorb a lot of moisture and it retains in there. It can mold prematurely. There's a lot of exclusions in the warranties of of the vast majority of the deck boards on the market actually exclude mold and mildew, which we just can't have with the lifetime deck. The other way we're combating moisture is we have a fully capped board. Even in the groove, we've got a EPL resin that actually coats all the way around the board to protect any moisture intrusion. How we protect the core is with no wood filler, as I said, what we use is a rice husk formula. For the rice husk, it's actually impervious to moisture and it repels moisture naturally. So we're really excited about that. Some of the other key features, less about moisture and more about customers is it's reversible. So heaven forbid in ten years you damage one of these deck boards, you can actually flip the board. With our hidden fasteners, they actually unscrew. We can flip the board. We've got a great service team that can help you with that. In addition to that, one of the other complaints in the marketplace with composite decking is that it gets very hot. Our boards are one of the first and only with heat blocking technology. So we're actually able to not eliminate the heat, but greatly reduce the heat for a more comfortable feel year round. So we're really excited to show you guys in person the six beautiful colors of our composite decking. You're absolutely gonna love them, and we look forward to seeing you and showing you these beautiful composite colors. The next section of the deck is equally important to the decking, and that is the railing. A lot of deck builders and and builders in general are gonna install a wood railing and then if you want it upgraded, they're gonna sleeve it with like a vinyl or composite. The problem with that is there's a high failure rate to railing, It leads to injuries, and this can rot and mold. Vinyl, as you as you may know, it molds quickly and it cracks really easy. So it's the last thing you want on a product that you're touching every day. So what does GreenShield do? GreenShield installs commercial grade powder coated aluminum railing. This railing is impervious to water because of that aluminum, it's powder coated, so it'll last forever. It's perfect pairing for a lifetime deck and it still has a lot of the options that you would see on maybe a four by four vinyl wrapped rail and that we can do a two tone look where you can have black spindles, white rail. We can do larger posts. We can actually integrate lighting like I my sample here. At night, this thing glows. So we've got a ton of different options. We've got a frameless option, but all of our options stand the test of time and are covered by the green shield lifetime warranty. One of the big key differences between green shield and many others is that we use in house craftsman. Why is that different and why is it better? Well, lot of deck builders out there might might install a product and they might not follow the manufacturer's installation guidelines. If you miss a step in that respect, you could void your warranty. We can't have that. Green Shield installs to strict standards with in house employees. This allows us to have consistent quality outcomes. All of our craftsmen have been trained to install this board and this board board only. So we're really passionate about delivering quality products with quality craftsmen, so that way we can stand behind our warranties. Thank you so much for sticking with me through this video, so that way you can learn what makes Green Shield deck so unique and how we're able to offer you that lifetime warranty. We're super excited to meet with you at your home. We're gonna bring all the samples to you so that way you can touch and feel everything and feel comfortable about how these components make up the GreenShield deck and provide that lifetime warranty.